A breakdown of the factions in Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Universe: the Commonwealth Saga, Void Trilogy and Chronicle of the Fallers.
For a breakdown by character, see Commonwealth Universe.
In the interests of not blanking out the entire page, spoilers are unmarked for all works prior to the Chronicle of the Fallers.
Introduced in the Commonwealth Saga
Human
Most humans fall under the scope of the Intersolar Commonwealth.Alien
The Primes are the natives of Dyson Alpha. They are divided into motiles (non-sentient, moving) and immotiles (sentient, immobile). Immotiles can control motiles. Immotiles are Prime 'people', although the same consciousness can be spread across more than one immotile. The species starts out with many individual minds, but by the time of the story, there is only one: MorningLightMountain.
Actually, that's not quite accurate: there are two. MorningLightMountain17,735 is a fork of MorningLightMountain that was sent on an interstellar journey and was locked out of Dyson Alpha when the barriers went up. It changed course and landed on Far Away. When human colonists arrived, it began incorporating them into its mental empire. One - Bradley Johansson - managed to escape, and founded the Guardians of Selfhood to fight against it. While the Primes are the Big Bad of the Commonwealth Saga, the Starflyer is revealed to be The Man Behind the Man, carefully manipulating humanity and its parent into wiping each other out.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: MorningLightMountain is never portrayed sympathetically, but it's made clear that it's trying to kill everything because it sees the very existence of other life as an existential threat.
- Fantastic Naming Convention: Primes don't really have 'names' - they have identification stimuli. The stimulus is the first image the original immotile saw when it came to consciousness. MorningLightMountain is one such name - it was born on a mountain at dawn. Other such names are mentioned, such as SouthernRockPlateau and ColdLakePromontory, but by the time of the story MorningLightMountain is the only one left alive so names are irrelevant. Individual immotiles within the same consciousness seem to be designated somehow - the Starflyer is designated MorningLightMountain17,735.
- Hijacked by Ganon: In the Void Trilogy, at first seemingly played straight - Primes are discovered among the Ocisen Empire's anti-Pilgrimage fleet, and it looks as if they've somehow snuck around the Commonwealth and become a convincing military threat again. However, it turns out that the Prime species has nothing to do with it - the controlling consciousness of the Ocisen fleet Primes is actually a human Accelerator agent re-lifed into some acquired Prime immotiles.
- The Remnant: Incredibly, the Primes survive the Commonwealth Saga. MorningLightMountain proper is still locked in Dyson Alpha, and likely to remain so forever, but the remaining invading force in the Lost23, finding its back to a wall, promptly analyses human rights law, sues for peace, and is allowed to continue existing (under very close Commonwealth supervision).
- Higher-Tech Species
- Space Elves: Apart from not being remotely humanoid, the Raiel kind of fulfil the niche of 'wise, knowledgeable, long-lived elder civilisation'. It's mentioned that their homeworld has seen the rise of two sentient species since they left, giving them the You Can't Go Home Again vibe which characterises Tolkien's elves.
- Starfish Aliens: With a really quite surprisingly human psychology. There is even a recorded case of a Raiel marrying a human.
- Transhuman Aliens / Not Even Human: The warrior Raiel who guard the Gulf outside the Void boundary are considered this by normal Raiel.
Introduced in the Void Trilogy
Human
Alien
- "Ass" in Ambassador: An Ocisen Ambassador meets with the Burnellis in the first book of the Void Trilogy. It's rather rude (although noted to be surprisingly socially adept for an Ocisen).
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Ambassador's rhetoric, its gleeful xenophobia toward another alien species (the Hancher) and the Ocisens' technological backwardness all give them shades of Recycled In Space North Korea.
- Higher-Tech Species: Inverted. The Ocisens are laughably far behind the Greater Commonwealth, to the extent that a single squadron of Commonwealth Navy Capital-class ships is considered sufficient to turn around an Ocisen fleet of 2,800.
- Jerkass Has a Point: The Ocisens' major issue with humanity is that the Commonwealth refuses to stop Living Dream trying to enter the Void, even though if they get in they could prompt a galaxy-devouring expansion phase. Quite honestly, it's hard to blame the Ocisens.
